Queen of Crows

You and Bucky were curled up like kittens in your bed. Blankets and pillows strewn around you, and his head nestled mostly on your stomach as you recline. With a soft touch, you drag your fingers through his hair as he reads to you.
“There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker.” He lets out a pleased hum as you scratch up from his neck and into his hair. When you massage the back of his skull slightly, he lets out a low moan of approval.
“Keep reading,” you command. Tugging gently on the strains as he reopens the eyes he didn’t mean to shut.
He offers you a heated smile and presses a kiss to your bare stomach. “It’s an inside kind — wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.”
“Loneliness that can be rocked… There is poetry in those words.” you muse as he stops reading for a moment. “I don’t feel lonely anymore.”
The chuckle that he answers you with makes your body shake with the vibration. He shifts so that he can curl his body around you, his head nestling in your shoulder, and letting his nose nuzzle your neck. Bare legs tangling beneath the blanket and arms feeling the slight chill of the room’s air as your upper bodies are left uncovered.
“Me either,” he breathes as he switches to light kisses. “I like not being lonely.”
You giggle as his stubble rasps against your skin. “You gonna continue reading, soldier? Or do you have more pressing business elsewhere?”
Another laugh leaves you as you let him entice you, yet again. Hours later you realize that happiness suits you.
~
“Read it again, sunshine!” Aru demands, pulling on one of Kore’s long braids.
Kore lean’s back against the trunk of a giant tree with Aru sprawled across her lap. She’s tucked her feet under you and is looking upside-down up at Kore with an impish smile on her face. It is the kind of face you want to pinch the cheeks of and smile dotingly down at. Aru has the kind of face that is backed by a personality sweeter than anything. It is how she gets away with so much.
With a shake of her head, Kore laughs. “Yes, princess. I suppose I could read it again.”
You sit to the side with needlework in your hands as you watch the two of them. The three of you are taking an afternoon off while your brothers are off world doing negotiations. It had been several days since you’d last seen any of them and it was affecting all of you.
“Once upon a time,” Kore begins to read again.
Her words drift over you as your hands work mindlessly.
“She’s asleep.” Kore puts down the book and strokes Aru’s hair. “I forget how quiet she can be until she sleeps. So peaceful and tranquil – unlike when she’s awake again!”
Your gaze drifts up from your work and you see the sad smile on her face. “What’s wrong, sunshine?”
Her shoulders shrug as her gaze is fixated on Aru. “I worry about her. She’s so powerful and her future is certainly more uncertain then any of ours.”
With a shake of your head, you put down your needlework. “You know what has to happen. We’ve been putting it off and not bringing it up but sooner or later her powers will need to be bound. It will only hurt her for a moment and they she never needs to worry about it again.”
“I know.” Kore responds as she strokes a gentle hand through Aru’s hair. “Ezekiel has already mentioned it to me.”
“He has?” you stare at her in shock that your most protective brother has already thought of a solution he no doubt detests. “And he agrees that it is the only way?”
Kore nods. “He knows what needs to be done.”
“Who does he want to do the binding?”
A silent laugh shakes Kore’s shoulders as she looks up at you. “We both know who will do the binding.”
“He’d never let anyone but himself use that kind of magic on her.”
~
“How many cities have been effected?” Fury asks as the agent goes over the report with him. The poor director is exhausted, as is the sagging agent before him. Both have been working overtime (not that either of them are aware of the other’s fatigue). Both have reached the place beyond overtiredness where it is but a distant irritation. They know that at any moment they may simply collapse, yet they push past it because they must. It is a place Fury is accustomed to being. Exhaustion is an old friend of his and it greets him with open arms.
The agent blinks, trying to clear the daze from his eyes. “Um, fourteen, sir.”
“Timespan?” Despite sitting, Fury feels more tired with his feet not planted firmly under him. “Three months was it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The director leans back in his chair and contemplate what to do. There have been various bars and clubs hit in cities all over the world in the past few months. Each had been a seemingly random location to have such devastation occur. No warning leading up to the incidents. All of a sudden the patrons at the location went rabid and decimated each other. No survivors, and no one escaped the carnage. What was especially disturbing is how the people killed each other. It wasn’t quick or painless. No.
They ripped each other apart. Teeth biting into tender flesh and tearing it off bones. Hair coming out scalps due to several people latching on and pulling together in a joint effort to bald the poor victim. Fake nails were stuck in one poor man’s eyes as they were gouged out while he was alive. There had been video of several of the incidents and the screams and laughter of the crowds is something that will haunt Fury for years. Seemingly innocent people turned into monsters.
It reeks of your work, but how can Fury accuse you? You who have earned the trust of the team and been allowed small freedoms due to their trust and respect. Can Fury destroy that on a hunch?
He has to.
Right?
The consequences of not telling could be much worse.
Besides, he’s used to saying the things no one wants to hear. That’s why he’s the director.
“Get the team in here.” He orders the agent, who nods immediately. “And, make sure that she doesn’t come with them.”
~
You know something is wrong when the guards escorting you demand that you wear cuffs. It is the first inkling you have that things are not right, and the whispers of guilt and shame wafting down the hallways add to it. When you near the door the amount of anger radiating off it makes you want to refuse to go it. But, darkness (even anger) doesn’t scare you. Not anymore.
The doors are pushed open and you see a map up on the screen behind Director Fury, who is standing at the head of the table. The Avengers are sitting around it and all gazes swing to you when you enter. No one smiles. Instead, they look ready to condemn you to death.
“Well?” you ask, eyebrows raise and heartbeat increasing when you see the stony mask of Bucky’s face. “To what do I owe the pleasure of being summoned today?”
They don’t crack at your words and the darkness in the room rises. It increases steadily like a damn that has broken is going to drown you all in its black, inky waves. But, you won’t drown in darkness. You can breathe it in and let it fill your lungs until clouds of smoke become breath to you. It is them you worry about. Soon it is going to kill them. None of them will survive if the darkness claims them. You’ve seen it happen before. The way it slowly slips down their throat and into their lungs. Coating them in despair so that nothing will reach them. Death will follow them if they let the darkness continue.
“It doesn’t look good.” Clint is the first to speak and it breaks your heart.
You frown. “I’m confused. Did I do something?”
Nat lets out a huff. “That remains to be seen. However, you’ve been accused of doing something.”
At Nat’s words, Bucky slams his fist on the table. He doesn’t speak or even look at you, but the tension running through his body is palpable. You can tell that he isn’t angry, but confused that makes him frustrated. And when he’s frustrated he feels out of control, which is bad for everyone. Right now he doesn’t trust you, and that breaks your heart all over again.
Covering the flinch when he slams his hand, you take a leisurely step forward. You learned quickly in life that showing weakness can get you killed, and you refuse to die today. “That’s nice, however, I have no idea of what you speak. What am I being accused of?”
“Fourteen cities have had incidents…” Fury says slowly. “The people in them have gone – insane. They destroyed each other in ways I’ve never seen before. Obviously, that is not a normal occurrence, especially of this magnitude. Who else but you?”
Anger sparks within you, dark and vicious. An unnamed beast raises its head at his words but when you speak it is with excruciating calm. “Excuse me?”
“They’re dead, (y/n)!” Snaps Steve as he gives you an untrusting look. “See those bodies? That is your doing.”
The images are the thing of nightmares. Limbs torn from torsos and lifeless eyes staring up at nothing. There is no way that any of the bodies are recognizable. It would be like trying to do a thousand-piece puzzle with body parts. Horrific and bloody.
Blinking you let the tendrils of shadow that have been curling themselves within you settle. The anger inside you cools and you’re now leaning toward fear. “When did this first occur?”
“About three months ago. We had an agent at the location that night.” He continues, crossing his arms and planting his feet. “She left before the chaos began. Send in Agent Hill!”
Maria enters from the door behind you. A haunted look is in her eyes, and there is a thin film of shadow covering her. It whispers her secrets in your ear and what you feared is confirmed. Those whispers tell you of what she did, of whom she did them with.
“Sir,” Agent Hill offers a salute.
When Fury asks her to recount how the bar was before she left, she does. Maria goes over every detail she can remember, down to the shoes she was wearing. When she finishes she glances briefly at you, before lowering her eyes again.
“Why did you leave?” you ask. You know why she left but have to pry the information out of her. Not everyone is as fortunate to have dirty secrets whispered in their ears as you are.
She tries to suppress a blush. “I left with a man.”
“Did you get his name?” Heart pounding, you hold your breath. You already know the answer but wish with all your heart that it won’t be true.
“He called himself Zek.”
“Let me guess,” you drawl. “Pretty looking man with slicked back hair and eyes that made you think of sinful things?”
Maria blinks rapidly, “I-I suppose? He was rather pretty.”
“Yes,” with an annoyed toss of your hair, you glare at nothing in particular. “They all do say he is pretty. Personally, I don’t see it.”
Now, they’re all gawking at you openly, even Nat.
“You know the man?” Clint chokes out the question. “This ‘Zek’?”
At this you offer them a sardonic smile. “I suppose I know him better than most. He used to go by Ezekiel and he is my brother.”
~
Kore sits across from you, a chess piece held in her fingers as she claims another of your pawns. Lately, she has been shutting herself away, no longer joining you all for visits to other planets or even quick trips into the galactic bazaar. Even Ezekiel and Aru can’t tempt her from the melancholy that has befallen her.
“Sacrifice.” She mutters to herself, shaking her head.
“That is the premise of chess, yes.” You reply to her words, unsure what she means by them. “You don’t find sacrifice worth the ultimate win?”
Her eyes flit up to meet yours before returning to the board. “I find that I can no longer see the long game. All I see is the immediate pain. The hurt that’s going to slowly consume everything and everyone that it touches. Why bother? Is the sacrifice worth it?”
You frown at her and open your mouth to respond when a voice speaks behind you.
“Yes, to win the game some must fall. Do not question fate, sunshine.” Aru’s eyes hold a haunted look as she walks over and topples the board on which you play.